Leslie Melton, a TESOL student, helps local resident with the use of flash cards.
Lee University's TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) program is breaking language barriers and reaching out to the non-English speaking residents of the Cleveland and Bradley County community.
Two years ago, Lee University launched the TESOL minor within the Department of English and Modern Foreign Languages. According to Lee's TESOL instructor Paula Stone, the TESOL minor is an 18-hour program that any student can add to their major.
"Our student tutors are majoring in everything from human development and education to intercultural studies and foreign languages," said Stone. "They can receive teacher certification with this minor. The number of immigrants coming to Tennessee, as well as to other regions in the southeast United States, is increasing and at some point in the future, Lee students will have non-English speaking students in their class. Having a TESOL minor makes our TESOL students more marketable as a teacher."
"Although I have been in teaching for quite a long time, I have always had a dream of getting my TESOL certification," said McClung. "I think, for me, it brings different aspects of my life together -- teaching and a love of communicating with people from other countries."
The Family Literacy Program, which began at Lee University two years ago, is a grant-funded program. Leslie Melton coordinates the program with the help of Trish McClung. The people who participate in the program are from Eastern Europe, Korea, Mexico, or are students attending the Church of God Theological Seminary.
"Because of the language barrier, employment and monetary resources are limited for these families," said Stone. "In order for them to participate fully in society and to improve their economic and educational prospects, it is imperative that they become proficient English speakers."
The Family Literacy Program is an educational outreach of Lee University that provides free English language tutoring to non-English speaking members of the Cleveland/Bradley County community. Under the direction of Stone, this program offers English language tutoring to adults, varying in age and English proficiency, and their children ranging primarily from kindergarten through 12th grade.
Lee University students serve as volunteer tutors, and provide the use of its facilities and equipment for the literacy sessions as well as the curriculum used in the program. Stone said that participants are grouped by their proficiency level -- beginning, intermediate, or advanced.
"The TESOL program at Lee provides opportunities for students to use what they have learned," said Melton.
Lee students who serve as tutors in the program are finding that there are some very beneficial rewards with TESOL.
"TESOL is a wonderful opportunity to reach out to people, not just on a national level, but on a global level," said Sara Plowman, a senior human development major Georgia. "The program breeds cultural awareness, develops relationships, and provides the learner, as well as the teacher, with invaluable academic and career support while enhancing linguistic abilities."
"Numerous people of diverse cultures exist in the United States who need and want to learn the English language," said Nikki Gorman, an Intercultural Studies major from Tennessee. "Teaching English allows me to help highly motivated students of other cultures learn the language while they teach me about their culture."
Stone said they recruited potential participants by distributing informational brochures at the Bradley County Adult Education center and other local agencies that serve members of the non-English speaking community, as well as industries that employ them. The program primarily serves the Hispanic and Russian communities, which are the two largest non-English speaking communities in the area, but are also open to people of all language groups.
"This field is growing, and in five or six years, we hope to build this field from a minor to a major area of study for Lee students," said Stone. "The student tutors are also getting practical, hands-on experience in the Bradley County School system."
Students who pursue the TESOL minor must take grammar, linguistics, language acquisition, and methods classes, which teaches them how to teach English and shows them different approaches in teaching.
For more information about the program, please contact Paula Stone at Lee University at (423)614-8210 or pstone@leeuniversity.edu.
Sara Plowman, right, a TESOL student, helps Helen Lee, a voice major from Korea, with her studies.